


No Rest For The Wicked

by KoraSonata



Category: Hermitcraft RPF
Genre: Banter, Cleo is concerned, F/F, False is very stubborn, Hermitcraft - Freeform, Iskall Bdubs Grian and Cub are mentioned but not part of the story, Minecraft, Sharing a Bed, Sleep Deprivation, Slight Flirting, mentions of swordfighting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 06:14:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28683888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KoraSonata/pseuds/KoraSonata
Summary: “You know, if I’d known it was that easy to get into your bed...”False let’s out a short huff of air through her nose in a vaguely laugh-like manner, and Cleo thinks she can see the tiniest twitch of a smile ghosting at the corners of her mouth, but the blonde otherwise remains silent. Cleo sighs.“False.”“Cleo.”“You need to sleep.”ORFalse hasn’t slept in days, and Cleo decides she needs to step in.
Relationships: Falsesymmetry/ZombieCleo
Comments: 8
Kudos: 36





	No Rest For The Wicked

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Rest](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24977176) by [SugarsweetRomantic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SugarsweetRomantic/pseuds/SugarsweetRomantic). 



> I’ve never written anything for this fandom before, but I read Rest by SugarsweetRomantic and was inspired

“Ok. Bed.”

“Nice to see you too.” False replies sarcastically, raising her Pickaxe once more to chip away at another bit of stone with a prominent **_CRACK_**.

“I’m serious. You need to go to bed.” The red haired woman crossed her arms assertively, fixing the blonde woman with a raised eyebrow.

False merely hummed in response.

“This is ridiculous. You’ve been digging for days.” Her statement is only punctuated by another loud **_CRACK_**. Cleo watches as the younger woman raises her pick again. “Like actual, literal days. You need to sleep. I mean look at this!” Cleo makes a big, sweeping gesture to the floor with both arms. “There’s dirt and stone everywhere, you’re not even bothering to pick it up!”  
 ** _CRACK_**

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” **_CRACK_** “but we are standing” **_CRACK_** “in a giant hole. Of which,” **_CRACK_** “as you’ve so pointed out, I have been digging at” **_CRACK_** “for _literal days_.” **_CRACK_** **_CRACK_**. “I’m not exactly in short supply.”

“You have thousands of entities just lying around on the floor right now. How can you even move in this?”

“I seem to manage just fine.” False replies flatly, slinging her pick over her shoulder and moving to walk to another area for excavation. “Besides, all we have to do is tell Iskall there’s diorite and he’ll just come burn it all. Problem solved.”

Cleo sighs, glancing up at the dark and precarious looking shelf of stone False had created with her digging, as she trails after the woman inside. She knew the mechanics well enough to know that it definitely wouldn’t fall, but the spam of torches below were doing nothing to illuminate the area above, and it was awfully dark. She glanced around cautiously for any sign of creepers, but saw none. She supposed there was nothing to stop one of those oversized spiders from scaling the wall and laying in wait either, but those could be more easily taken care of. That, and the drop itself was likely high enough to kill any of the pouncing arachnids upon impact.

A loud, piercing screech interrupts her thoughts from somewhere above them, and she can’t help but flinch out of instinct at the oh-so-familiar dreaded sound. Beyond the man-made shelf of stone, she can see the stars twinkling in the night sky high above them. That, and the vague outline of at least 4, dark and circling silhouettes. And that was just what was in her direct line of vision. She suspected more lay in wait, similarly circling, directly above her semi-protective shelf of stone. _There’s definitely phantoms up there_.

“You’re not even in that sheltered of a space. How you haven’t been killed by the flocks of those damn demon birds that swarm your base every night is beyond me.”

False shrugs. “It sometimes pays to be handy with a sword. Plus-“ the blonde sidesteps a small avalanche of falling gravel, performing the maneuver with the practiced grace and ease of a woman who had in fact been dealt many hundreds of similar hazards throughout her entire epic dig excursion. She switches her pick for a shovel. “They don’t tend to survive long with Bdubs around do they. Sun’s barely down before it’s up again, ain’t it?” She shovels the mound of gravel out of her path before pausing briefly to brush a bit of stray dirt off the shoulder of her jacket. “Burn almost instantly thanks to his meticulous sleeping habits.”

“You should take a leaf out of his book.”

False scoffs. “What, and deprive him of his title?” She smirks. Cleo rolls her eyes, but cracks a smile all the same. “Don’t think I could beat him to it if I tried. Besides,” she grabs for her pick again, moving to the next area “if I slept as much as he does I’d never get any work done.”

 ** _CRACK_**.

“He seems to manage just fine.” Cleo counters.

“Yes, well, we can’t all raise entire mountains in the span of a day, now can we?”

 ** _CRACK_** “He’s not around right now.” Cleo points out.

“No,” **_CRACK_** “he’s not.”

“Would be the perfect time to get some sleep.” She continues.

**_ CRACK _ **

“Bed’s upstairs if you’re tired.”

**_ CRACK _ **

“You know, if I’d known it was _that_ easy to get into your bed...”

False let’s out a short huff of air through her nose in a vaguely laugh-like manner, and Cleo thinks she can see the tiniest twitch of a smile ghosting at the corners of her mouth, but the blonde otherwise remains silent. Cleo sighs.

“False.”

“Cleo.”

“You need to sleep.”

“I _need_ to finish digging.”

“Which you can do after you’ve slept!”

“I will sleep when I’m dead.” She makes another swing of her pick before stopping short, side eying the other woman. “That wasn’t an invitation either.” She glances towards the sword that lay strapped to Cleo’s belt, although the redhead in question had in fact not reached for its hilt. “Unless you really think you can have a go.”

“Not with you I don’t.” Cleo raises her hands in mock surrender. “I ain’t taking you on, even in this state. My reputation as a swordsman doesn’t particularly proceed me, unlike yours.

False hummed, smirking to herself as she drew up her pick once more and continued to work.

“You _do_ need to sleep though.”

False ignores her.

“Or a least sit down or something. You need to rest.”

This statement is only echoed by another crack of a pick.

“You know that going just 24 hours without sleep has been compared to having a blood alcohol content over the legal driving limit right?” **_CRACK_**. “You can have memory deficits or vision and hearing impairments or tremors?” **_CRACK_**. False continues to ignore her. Cleo only continues on.

“36 hours can alter your metabolism, appetite, and hormonal balance.” **_CRACK_**. “People can start hallucinating after 3 days! You start being delusional!” **_CRACK_** “Paranoid even! You can suffer serious cognitive impairments! Psychosis! Irritability!”

“I’m starting to feel irritable alright...” False mumbles under her breath, raising her pick again.

**_ CRACK _ **

“Oh you are, are you? Shall I go over the long-term complications then?” **_CRACK_**. False huffs in annoyance, but Cleo doesn’t stop. “Not getting enough sleep increases the risk of hypertension, diabetes, sleep apnea,” **_CRACK_** “mood swings, stroke, depression,” **_CRACK_** “cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, high blood pressure, speech impairments, heart disease, heart failure, heart atta-AHHHH”

Cleo shrieks.

False lunges towards her in a flurry of motion, stepping closely into her personal space bubble and brandishing her sword. Cleo doesn’t even have time to react as she feels a rush of air graze past her left ear, the blonde having swiftly maneuvered her weapon to strike at the phantom just behind her head. The bird takes off into the sky with a sickening screech.

False is close enough now that Cleo can feel her body heat radiating off of her. She can see the faint blush of exertion decorating her cheeks, and can feel her panting breaths ghosting over her own. They remain as such for a moment longer, locking their gaze for a fraction of a moment, before False lets out a huff. Once again retracting her sword, the younger woman takes a step backwards. Reaching instead for her bow and nocking an arrow, she takes aim at the retreating form of the phantom, before the dreaded creature could return.

“You see! This is what I’m talking about!” Cleo exclaims as the other woman let’s lose her arrow, the tell tale ting of the experience orbs indicating it had indeed reaching its mark. False rolls her eyes, slinging her bow across her back once more. “You see how many of those things are around? You need to sleep, this is a hazard!” False merely huffs, wiping the blade of her sword clean on the hem of her shirt. “And it’s not at all healthy to go this long without sleeping.” She adds.

“You know, I don’t recall ever questioning _your_ sleeping habits when you decided to go phantom hunting last year.” **_CRACK_** comes the sound of the pick as she resumes her work. “Or Cub’s. Or Grian’s. You were _all_ up for **_weeks_** hunting those ‘ _ **damn demon birds**_ ’, as you put it.”

“That was different.”

“How exactly?”

“Firstly,” **_CRACK_** “it was a competition and not something we were doing _just because_.” She throws the other woman an accusatory look as she continues to work. **_CRACK_** comes the sound of the pick. “We had real cash money on the line. Secondly, “ **_CRACK_** “Phantoms are something that can only be hunted at night. And it was for a limited time.” **_CRACK_**. “And it’s not like the lot of us were up every night.” **_CRACK_**. False continues to chip away at the stone. Cleo sighs once again.

She grows silent then, glancing towards the woman. She strides across the room-like chasm to stand beside her, watching her face as she continues to work. There’s a smear of dirt across her right cheek and a knit to her brow as she concentrates on her task at hand. Her muscles tense with every swing of the pick, and Cleo watches as the woman’s chest rises and falls heavily, panting with exertion. False’s breathing is laboured and uneven, and Cleo can’t help but notice the slight shiver that wracks through the woman’s body as her breath comes out in a ragged cloud of white mist.

“You’re cold.” She states, her voice coming out much softer now. Lighter. And gentler.

“Am not.” False replies immediately, although altogether unconvincingly.

“And a terrible liar.”

False grumbles, raising her pick above her head to make another strike. One. Two. Three.

“You can’t keep doing this forever.”

And as if to finally punctuate her point, False’s pickaxe gives out with an audible **_CLANK_**. False looks down at her hand where her once faithful pickaxe had been mere seconds ago, now destroyed.

“You see? This is the universe telling you to get some bloody sleep!”

False takes a moment to compose herself before squaring her shoulders and striding towards a small, black, chest resting against the far wall. “I somehow think you owe me a pick.”

“I somehow think if you’d slept in the last week and a half you’d have remembered to check the durability.”

“You were distracting me!” She exclaims, opening the lid of the chest with a creak and rummaging through its contents before producing one of her spare, albeit also very damaged, picks from inside.

“Ah ah ah.” Cleo immediately plucks the tool out of her hands, holding it beyond the blonde’s reach.

“Hey!”

“Bed!”

“You know I think this can technically be classified as theft?”

“Did you know that humans can only realistically go 11 days without sleep?” False makes a grab for the pick, but Cleo only holds it higher, her height advantage making it impossible for the blonde to realistically reclaim it without scaling her body. “Bed!”

“You know I still have a sword, you don’t want to start this.”

“You can fight me all you want _in the morning_.”

False reaches for the hilt of her sword, but her hand is stopped by one of Cleo’s coming to rest against it.

“False.” False looks up to meet her gaze. “It’s late. It’s dark, your cold, and probably hungry, because lord knows you’ve been so focused on digging that you probably haven’t even eaten anything all day.” Again, as if to accentuate her point, Falses stomach let’s out an audible growl. Cleo smiles lightly, removing her hand from the one beneath it to gently brush a patch of stray gravel from the collar of False’s jacket. “Your jacket’s a mess, your tools need to be repaired, you have gravel in your hair.” She looks fondly and with amusement upon the messy strands that have fallen haphazardly over her face, of which False had immediately tried to comb out with her fingers. She reaches her arm upwards to still her movements. “ _And_ you haven’t slept in days.”

False grumbles under her breath, glancing away in annoyance at the prospect that Cleo might actually have a point. Cleo gently smooths the tangled strands of hair between two fingers, brushing them aside with care. False sighs softly.

“Come up to bed. Your hole will still be here tomorrow. “ She smirks, ruffling False’s hair in a playful manner “and then you can fight me all you want.” False swats her hand away. Cleo smiles. “But you need to get some sleep. Please.”

False sighs. “Alright.” She agrees, finally conceding. “But you still owe me a pick.”

“Hey, don’t look at me. You were the one who didn’t check the durability, I had nothing to do with that.”

False takes a step back to better survey her companion. “How about you fix up that one and we’ll call it even.” She nods towards the tool still held in Cleo’s grasp.

Cleo shrugs. “I can live with that. Now come on.” She holds out a hand, waggling her fingertips in invitation. False rolls her eyes, but takes the offered hand, allowing herself to be led forward.

“You know, I don’t need an escort.” She comments as the pair take off through the air.

“You kidding me right now? This coming from the woman who 100% would have kept digging for another month and a half had I not dragged her away kicking and screaming?” False rolls her eyes, but smiles lightly. “No, I am staying right here to make sure you don’t wander off and do something else.”

“What, don’t you trust me?”

Cleo raises an eyebrow. “You want me to answer that?”

The pair land softly inside the top of the tower, bed already in sight.

“Right, here we are. Nighttime, bed’s there, we’re all good.”

“Mm hm. In ye get.”

“You really gonna supervise me the entire time?”

Cleo smiles lightly, a playful glint to her eye. “Let’s just say I know you, love.”

False shakes her head, but removes her jacket, hanging it on the bed post before climbing beneath the covers. She glances back towards the woman still standing in the doorframe. She raises an eyebrow. “You coming, or you just gonna stand there and watch me sleep?”

Cleo cracks a smile, striding across the room to join her.

 _FalseSymmetry went to bed. Sweet Dreams_.

_ZombieCleo went to bed. Sweet Dreams._

———

Cleo is awoken the following morning by a weight pressed firmly against her chest and a blade of steel held to her throat. False grins wolfishly down upon her, the blonde woman straddling her waist and holding her sword aloft in a threatening and yet playful manner.

“I believe I was promised a fight.”

Cleo blinks, not even fighting against her hold, as she looks up at the woman, confused. “Wha..?”

False’s smile only grows wider. “If memory serves, I believe you informed me that I could ‘ ** _fight you all I wanted_** ’ in the morning. Well, it’s morning.” She leans in close and slow, stopping just before the tip of their noses can brush, and Cleo can feel her warm breath on her cold cheeks. “So, you ready?”

And just like that, she’s gone. The blade leaves her throat and False’s weight is removed as the woman retracts herself from the bed. Cleo groans, propping herself up in the bed and wiping the sleep from her eyes.

“Can’t we at least eat breakfast first?” She mumbles. A sheathed sword lands on the bed in front of her.

“Sparring practice in ten!” False sing-songs brightly, bouncing out of the room with altogether too much energy for the morning. Cleo groans.


End file.
